Lewis County Sirens.com

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS –  Jurors in Lewis County Superior Court have been moved through time as they hear from witnesses testifying in the Maurin murder trial, from December nearly 28 years ago to last year’s arrest of a suspect.

The trial of 55-year-old Ricky A. Riffe began its third week with yet another local person who recalled passing by Ed and Minnie Maurin’s home on U.S. Highway 12 in Ethel the morning they went missing on Dec. 19, 1985.

Marjorie Hadaller, now 75, who also lives in Ethel, said she drove by around 7:30 or 8 a.m. with her sister and remembered seeing all the lights on in their house.

She told jurors she noticed a white van parked with someone standing next to it and made a comment to her sister about it.

Ed, 81, and Minnie, 83, weren’t at home for a Christmas party they were hosting at noon that day. Their car was discovered abandoned the following morning in the parking lot at Yard Birds in Chehalis, with blood soaked onto its front seat. Their bodies were located days later on a logging road near Adna.

Beverly Jestrine took the witness stand yesterday telling how she contacted law enforcement after an appeal was made for information.

Jestrine was out Christmas shopping that same day and remembered pulling into the entrance on the west side of the Yard Birds parking lot in Chehalis when a car to her right made the same left turn, cutting her off.

“If I hadn’t been going slow and saw him, I’d have T-boned him,” she said.

Jestrine said she noticed the driver was sitting very close to the driver’s side door – almost against the window – and wearing a knit cap and coat of navy or dark green.

When she left the shopping center, 20 or 30 minutes later, she saw a man walking briskly up Kresky Avenue holding a gun, with a towel and when he reached in his pocket, he dropped something that looked like three small cylinders and a piece of paper, she said.

“He had like a 5 o’clock shadow,” she said. “Other than the back and the side, I did not get a good look at his face.”

Ruth Lascurain lived in Cinebar and also took a trip to Yard Birds that day.

She parked on east side of building, and testified she noticed a green car parked with its lights on. Lascurain said she saw a guy she thought was with another person, and saw him walk towards the car.

“I saw him walk to the back of the car, maybe he bent down, I thought he was going to turn the lights off,” she said.

She didn’t see his face, but recalled baggy-ish clothing, that seemed like big Army coat, she said.

Another witness said he contacted police after hearing the news.

James Heminger saw a person walking north away from Yard Birds on Kresky, carrying a shotgun in his right hand,

“Not really skinny, not really heavy, nothing remarkable,” Heminger said of the man.

Leslie Mauel, was a 911 dispatcher then and today is the supervisor at the Lewis County 911 Communications Center.

Mauel testified it was about 2 o’clock that afternoon when he saw a car parked at saw at Yard Birds – which he described as a black vinyl and pea green car – with its lights on, and they were dim.

Jurors were brought forward in time yesterday to the latter part of 2003, when then-Lewis County Sheriff John McCroskey had a detective go through and review all the evidence, to find what he could send off to be tested for DNA. That was not long after Minnie Maurins’ son Denny Hadaller hired a pair of private detectives to look into the case.

Jurors were brought forward in time again to when the current Lewis County Sheriff Steve Mansfield decided to put a new detective on the old case.

Mansfield said he assigned detective Bruce Kimsey to the case, since both he and Kenepah were older and he wanted to make sure a younger person who would be around longer was familiar with the case.

William Gifford was an Alaska state trooper who was asked in March of last year to assist Kimsey, who had asked him to locate the Riffe brothers. He took the witness stand yesterday as well.

Giifford said he arrived in the small village of White Salmon as a recreational fisherman, checked out the Riffe’s house a couple of times and had a trooper to fly over to get a look as well.

Subsequently that summer, he, Kimsey, two other investigators and Lewis County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Will Halstead went to make the arrest, he said. John Gregory Riffe had died.

After knocking and getting no answer, Gifford said he heard the sound of an oxygen machine, and having a concern of a medical issue involving Ricky Riffe, he opened the door and shouted out, Gifford testified.

The response from upstairs was, “Who the f*** is it,” he said. He said he was Bill Gifford, Alaska state trooper.

The response was, “What the f*** do you want,” Gifford said.

Riffe came downstairs and was arrested.

Ricky A. Riffe, 55, is charged with burglary, robbery and murder in the case.

Elected Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer and Senior Deputy Prosecutor Halstead are prosecuting the case. Riffe is represented by Seattle-based attorney John Crowley, assisted by paralegal Richard Davis.

The trial resumes this morning.

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